June 24 destination: Calatagan, Batangas for the Bangkathon 2013

We will be off to our next travel destination on Monday and I hope it will not rain in that part of the Philippines. Our destination: Calatagan, Batangas. We will witness the 10th Bangka Marathon or the Bangkathon 2013.

Here’s some information from the organizers.

Conserve and Protect Oceans (CAP-Oceans) is a non-stock, non-profit organization established by Mr. Vicente “Bu” Madrigal Warns and a group of divers in 2003. It was founded with a primary objective of building a strong multi-sectoral advocacy for the conservation and protection of the sea and its rich natural resources. The foundation believes that negligence and abuse of our oceans is due to the lack of general public awareness on the different issues concerning the environment that can be addressed through a call for volunteerism as well as through education and information dissemination.

As part of its advocacy, CAP-Oceans started a simple boat race involving manual paddling for local fisherfolk back in 2003. The race was called “Bangkathon” (Karera ng mga bangkang di sagwan) and aimed to encourage the active participation of the local communities to manage the municipal waters. The event is now held every year on the 24th of June together with the Local Government of Calatagan. This year’s Bangkathon will be even more special as this will be our tenth year of running the foundation and holding the race.

This year’s Bangkathon race will start at Balumbato pier and will end in front of the Marine Protected Area or The Calatagan Artificial Reef Fish Sanctuary in Barangay Bagong Silang, Calatagan Batangas. This will cover at least 10 kilometers of manual paddling by the local fisherfolk participants. We are expecting around 50 to 75 contestants and around 1,000 spectators from within the area and nearby barangay coastal residents.

We can’t promise to have live updates on Twitter or Facebook since I am not sure if Telcos has good signal in there, but we will surely share to you our story when we get a good data connection.

If you are going there too Tweet us @phtravelblog lets meet there! See you in Kalatagan on Monday!